


Interstate Love Song

by juggieheadcoopers



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-13 13:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11186469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggieheadcoopers/pseuds/juggieheadcoopers
Summary: Betty Cooper is a down-on-her-luck college student who is in danger of losing her spot on her school’s newspaper. She’s given one last chance to prove herself by conducting an interview with the lead singer of an up and coming indie band, Archie Andrews. When she’s thrown next to a freelance photojournalist who is the opposite of Betty in every way possible at the concert, things go sour in the worst ways when their most prized possessions get packed up with the band’s equipment and they’re forced to travel the road together to retrieve them.





	1. Greendale - Crash Into Me

Betty Cooper had just spent the last ten minutes scrubbing the mustard stain out of her pair of lucky white slacks with the ripped-off-corner of the last bit of paper towel on the roll in the ladies bathroom. The mustard stain had been the result of a careless fan maneuvering his way from the busiest food stall, to the merchandise booth - his camera in one hand, his Italian sausage in the other, and his focus on anything other than the path in front of him. As fate would have it, Betty had been heading down that very same path in the opposite direction, at the exact wrong time. 

One shoulder bump and a trip over a much-too-oversized combat boot later, the condiment-soaked meat product went flying in the air and onto Betty’s favorite pair of pants that she only wore when she had a very big, very important day that required an extra bit of luck. The scruffy-haired miscreant didn’t even apologize for possibly ruining the only article of clothing that brought her any shred of hope for successfully keeping her sanity in an interview like the one she was conducting today, and instead mumbled something about wasting three dollars on the now-asphalt-heavy food item, and headed into the auditorium without another glance in her direction. 

Out of sorts and unsure of where she was going, she stumbled through an unlocked, unguarded, gate that happened to lead backstage and into the one room where she needed to be most - Archie Andrews’ dressing room. Silently praising the gods in charge of the luck in her lucky-white-slacks, she removed her trusty red day planner and charged forward, a few feet away from the reason she had stepped foot into this god-forsaken concert in the first place and the big break she was sure to receive after she wrote this kick-ass article. Taking a deep breath - inhale ten seconds, exhale for five - she lifted her fist to knock on the door and -

“Miss?” A booming voice coming from behind her startled Betty into lowering her arm as quickly as it had shot up, the knowledge that she had just been caught in an act of misconduct causing her palms to sweat in a way that she had never experienced before. “You can’t be back here.” 

“You don’t understand,” she told the husky man with the thin strip of hair along the top of his hairline, her voice surprisingly strong for the way she was screaming at herself to surrender on the inside. “I’m with the Riverdale University Daily Gazette and I’m supposed to be doing an entire column on local superstar Archie Andrews who used to-”

“That’s an interesting story, really,” he deadpanned, his stony face showing no sign of remorse for kicking her out of the one and only place she needed to be at that very moment. “But you still can’t be back here. Now, I suggest you find your way to your seat before I’m forced to take you there myself or remove you from the premises.” 

“The disrespect for straight and honest journalism these days is unbelievable, I swear,” she muttered under her breath, shoving the organizer back into her almost-designer handbag and marching her way back through the same gate she came in, her swinging blonde ponytail nearly smacking the security guard’s nose as she passed him. 

Her thoughts jumped from one crazy scenario to the next as she strategized ways for how she was going to find her way backstage again after the concert, making her way through the slightly inebriated, slightly odor-ridden crowd of concert-goers and into the auditorium where the show was about to start. 

“Excuse me,” Betty told the annoyed group of business majors already seated at the end of her row, pointing to the empty seat six or seven seats down and tiptoeing her way past them. “Yeah, I just need to squeeze through here - yep, right there - thank you!”

Betty collapsed into the hard plastic seat that her college’s newspaper had paid for unsuspectingly, placing her purse delicately on her lap and removing her planner once more from inside, flipping to the small notebook at the back of the organizer and removing her pencil from the side pouch. 

“A little dressed up for a rock concert, don’t you think?” 

Betty turned her head to find the Italian-sausage-flinging-bandit sitting in the seat next to her, his unbrushed hair falling into his eyes in what Betty thought was an annoyingly attractive manner, and his camera held in front of his right eye as he captured the screaming gaggle of teenage girls standing in the front row attempting to storm the stage before the security guards at the front safely removed them and went about their business. 

“I’m not here to partake in senseless activities that the average college student clings to in hopes of finding where they belong in this big bad world of mistakes and confusion like some people,” Betty informed him, adjusting her Peter-Pan-collared sweater and flicking her nose up and away from him. “I’m here on business.” 

“What a coincidence,” he told her, his mouth dropping open in mock-surprise as he pointed the camera in her direction and clicked the button without warning. “So am I.”

“Please, what kind of business could you possibly be administering at a concert other than,-” Betty rolled her eyes, but then quickly turned to him with wide eyes as the realization settled into her expression. “Oh my god, are you a drug dealer?”

“Hot damn, she found me out,” he hollered, throwing his hands into the air as he let his camera hang by the strap around his neck. “You heard it here first, folks, I’m Greendale’s very own Scarface - get the finest blow from this side of the river right here!” 

“Alright, then why are you here?” Betty shushed him, her eyes flicking down to the flannel shirt tied around his waist like he had time traveled back to the 90′s and had just stumbled out of a Nirvana concert. “If you’re not dealing drugs or enjoying the musty atmosphere of bad decisions and cigarette smoke, what kind of business could you offer in a place like this?” 

“I run a music blog,” he admitted, holding up his camera to her as if she hadn’t noticed it by now and flipping it over so that she could see it from every possible angle. “I travel to concerts documenting my experience - the fans, the music, the ove-priced merchandising. I capture the entire thing with my camera and then I share it with everyone else who couldn’t be here to enjoy it with me.” 

“So you spend your whole life skipping from town to town like a poorly dressed nomadic bunny,” Betty scoffed, scrunching her nose up in disgust as she watched the opening band make their way onto the stage. “Sounds irresponsible.” 

“It sounds like I’m actually enjoying my life,” he shot back, turning to glare at her shiny-black heels and hundred dollar manicure like it was the foulest thing he had ever seen. “Better than being a stuck up Priss whose only problems range from how much Daddy left me in the trust fund, to what car I’m going to drive to my boyfriend’s mansion next weekend, the Porsche or the Ferrari?” 

“You don’t know me,” she snarled, her cheeks red with anger as she resisted the urge to reach across his body and rip that camera off of his neck so she could smash it into a million pieces on the concrete. 

“Well thank god for that,” he mumbled. “Now if you’ll excuse me, the concert is starting and I’d rather not listen to your irritating voice throughout the whole thing so do me a favor and don’t talk to me.” 

“Happily,” she huffed, turning away from him dramatically by crossing one leg over the other and facing her body so that it was as far away from him as possible. “But for the record, I’m doing this as a favor to myself and not you because I don’t want to talk to you either.” 

“Nice mustard stain by the way,” he told her, his eyes flitting down to the faded yellow blob on the white fabric covering her thigh and smirking. “Really completes the outfit.” 

Forget the camera. She was going to kill him. And she was going to make it slow and painful and she was going to enjoy every last second of it. Or at least that’s what she thought about from the time the band stepped on stage, to the second they exited through the large velvet curtains after their final encore. She hated him. And if she never had the pleasure of seeing that smug look on his face ever again, she would have been the luckiest girl to ever walk the planet from that point on, stained slacks and all.


	2. Greendale - Give Me One Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty and Jughead find common ground, until they don't. And then they have no choice because the road trip begins.

Betty pushed and pulled and shimmied her way backstage after the concert, kicking through the dirt and grime that was the aftermath of a rock show so that she could finally talk to the one person she had been trying to see since she had arrived nearly three hours before.

“Elizabeth Cooper,” she told the security guard standing at the gate, reaching up on her tiptoes to see the clipboard he was holding close to his heart like it was his most prized possession. “C-o-o-p-e-r. I’m with Riverdale University and I should be on the list so if you could just check again and-,” 

“For this sixteenth time, kid, your name isn’t on here,” he grumbled, the exasperation evident in his voice as he scanned the clipboard one last time before placing it behind his back. “Sounds like someone screwed up somewhere and forgot to add you so do us all a favor and call one of the unlucky members or the uptight unfortunates club and get the hell out of here.” 

“No, you don’t get it, I have to talk to Archie Andrews tonight or I’m going to get kicked off the newspaper for sure,” she told him, desperation taking over as she resisted the urge to drop to her knees and start crying right there on the filthy concrete in the final attempt to get her way. “This would be my final strike and I really can’t afford to lose my position there, I mean my whole career depends on it!” 

“Save your sob story for someone who cares, Ponytail,” he snapped, stepping around her to gently shove her out of the way with his wide hips. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.” 

Betty stumbled over the dozens of feet that belonged to the ‘real reporters’ and photographers as she backed her way over to the curb and slumped down into a sad heap on the sidewalk. She had failed again. And this time, she wouldn’t get another chance to try again. Not to mention the giant stain on her pants that she knew judgmental passersby were staring at as they made their way out of the auditorium.

“Hey, Mario,” the Italian-sausage-flinging-bandit who sat next to Betty during to concert greeted the security guard with a warm smile, clapping him on the shoulder as he adjusted the camera strap around his neck. 

“Jughead, how’s it going, son?” Mario asked, the friendliness that he had been lacking during his encounter with Betty not two minutes ago, making its way onto the corners of his lips and the crinkle at the edge of his eyes. “That blog of yours still a hit?”

“I do alright, I guess,” Jughead shrugged, stepping out of the way to let a few reporters find their way from Archie Andrews’ dressing room and out onto the street outside of the auditorium. “How’s the wife and kids?” 

“They haven’t kicked me out yet, so I must be doing something right,” Mario joked, shrugging his broad shoulders as he marked something on his clipboard with the pen resting behind his ear. 

Jughead’s focused drifted to the sad heap of golden hair and mustard-stained pants sitting alone on the curb just outside of the venue, watching with curious eyes as she muttered to herself while scraping something that resembled an already chewed piece of gum off the bottom of her shoe in a frantic manner.

“What’s the story with that one?” 

“It’s pathetic really,” Mario sighed, shaking his head as if he felt sorry for the girl, without ever looking up from his clipboard. “She thinks she’s getting back there to interview Archie, but you know my rule…”

“No one gets backstage unless they’re on the list or important enough not to need a list for you to recognize them,” Jughead finished, his brows drawing together out of distant concern for the strange girl who insulted his music blog and fashion choices and had been nothing but rude to him the moment she entered the auditorium. 

“Exactly,” Mario told him. “I have to admit I do feel kind of sorry for her though. She says she’ll lose her position on her school’s newspaper if she doesn’t get this interview. But at the end of the day, I’m not held responsible for her dreams or yours or anyone else’s. If they get crushed on account of me doing my job, that’s not my problem.” 

Jughead wrestled with the decision to ignore the girl’s pathetic act of failure, or to look past their differences and help her out by being the gentleman his father had taught him to me. Rolling his eyes and silently cursing himself, he made his way over to the curb across the street and approached the blonde-headed mess with a look of smug accomplishment that she met with puffy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.

“Did it hurt?” he asked, and she looked up from the hole she was burning into the sidewalk, only to glare at him like he had three heads and a horn for a nose. “Falling from that high horse? Had to have been a rough landing coming from that height.” 

“If you’re here to gloat, you can save it,” she muttered, slipping her now-gumless shoe back onto her foot and pulling her knees up to her chin. “I already feel significantly crappy enough for one night, so you can take your taunting elsewhere.” 

Jughead’s eyes softened as the sympathy that he had been lacking before, finally settled into his expression as he lowered himself onto the curb next to her. “Will you really lose your position at the newspaper if you don’t get this article written?” 

“I’ve been given too many assignments where I couldn’t follow through with an interview,” Betty explained. “My final project was to interview a series of local celebrities who started in Riverdale, but found their way and branched out to pursue bigger and better opportunities. Archie Andrews was my last one, but if I can’t complete the series in its entirety, then my editor said I might as well not turn in any of it and I can pack up my desk when we get back to school in August. This newspaper means everything to me. If I lose it, then I have nothing left.” 

“Jesus, you really are pathetic,” he muttered, quickly standing from the sidewalk and turning in the direction of the venue that led to Archie Andrews’ dressing room. “Come on, what are you waiting for? He’s not going to wait all night for us you know.” 

“Really?” Betty’s eyes went wide as she launched herself off the curb. “You’d bring me back there with you?” 

“I know how devastated I would be if I lost my creative outlet. My music blog means everything to me and I don’t know what I would be doing if it got taken away from me,” Jughead admitted, meeting her gaze with a sympathetic smile as she brushed off the back of her already dirty slacks with both hands. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Even someone as stuck up and irritating as you.”

“You don’t know me,” she reminded him for the second time that night, narrowing her eyes at him as she placed a firm hand on her hip. 

“You’re right,” Jughead agreed, walking her to the door and nodding for Mario to let her pass. “So are you coming or what?”

“Let’s do this!” 

–

“I can’t believe he recognized me from Elementary school,” Betty swooned, her hair falling into her eyes as she pushed her way out of the dressing room and into the loading dock where the roadies were lugging large boxes of equipment into the back of a van. “I mean sure, we were in the same class but last time he saw me, I had braces and hair so frizzy that you couldn’t slide a brush through it without it getting stuck.” 

“You were practically drooling in there,” Jughead teased, nodding to Mario as they leaned against the brick wall of the auditorium. “I thought you were going to faint right in front of Mr. Indie Rock Sensation himself and I’d have to drag you out by that tightly-wound ponytail of yours.” 

“I don’t drool, thank you very much,” Betty muttered, pushing his arm back playfully as she crossed one foot over the other and gestured to his camera resting comfortably around his neck. “Anyway, did you get the shots you needed?”

“Yeah, I think these will do really great on the indie segment I’m writing this month,” Jughead explained, clicking through the pictures until he reached the one he was looking for and holding it out for her to see. “I even got a good one of you, believe it or not.” 

“Not,” Betty shook her head, pushing the camera away and tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear as she attempted to avoid his gaze. “I’ve never photographed well. My sister Polly is the one with the angelic smile and graceful way of making the camera want to capture her essence. I can barely smirk without looking like I’m in gut-wrenching pain.” 

“My camera begs to differ,” he assured her, tilting the camera down in her direction once last time and nudging her arm with his elbow. “Check it out.” 

Betty sighed, forcing her gaze down to the minuscule version of herself plastered on the camera’s display screen. She was swept up in something that Archie was telling her, her head thrown back and her smile reaching her eyes in the way it did when she was genuinely happy. In some other universe, she would have called herself beautiful. But this wasn’t some other universe. This was her universe. And she knew better.

“Well you must have had really good lighting in there,” she tried to explain and rationalize away the compliment, her cheeks flushing a bright red as she turned away from his gaze. “Sometimes florescents do wonders for the skin on camera and it - it -”

“It wasn’t the lighting,” he told her, his fingertips grazing her palm lightly as he leaned forward to take the camera from her grip. 

“Okay then,” Betty said quickly, pushing back from the wall and shaking off the tingly feeling radiating from her skin at the feeling of Jughead’s hand on hers. “Prove it. Take one with me.” 

“Alright, suit yourself,” Jughead shrugged, lifting his heavy Canon camera and turning it around to snap a photo of them ‘selfie style,’ but Betty quickly shook her head and removed it from his hands. 

“Not with your camera,” she told him, placing his expensive piece of equipment and her precious organizer that contained every interview she had conducted over the past six weeks on a stack of boxes behind them and removing her phone from her back pocket. 

“Oh no way,” he protested, catching the hint as Betty pulled up the camera on her phone and quickly backed away from her touch. “Now, that’s just an insult to every photographer who has ever and will ever exist. Seriously Robert Capa is rolling around in his grave right now at the mere thought of such-”

“Just get over here,” she instructed, pulling him down by his t-shirt so that his cheek was dangerously close to grazing hers.

Betty snapped the photo and pulled back so that she could check out her impressive photography skills, smiling to herself as she turned the phone around to show a skeptical-looking Jughead. 

“Not bad, huh?” she asked him, pointing to their smiling faces staring up at them on the glowing phone screen and smirking in his direction. “See? Excellent lighting, don’t you think?”

“We look surprisingly good together,” Jughead admitted.

“Who would have thought,” Betty breathed, leaning forward so that her lips were so close to meeting his that she could easily graze the tip of her nose against his as she breathed in his scent. 

“It looks like they’re packing everything up,” Jughead pointed out, backing away from her quickly and noticing how bare the room had gotten over the past few minutes as the people and boxes of equipment had been loaded into their vehicles and were ready to head to the next city. “We should probably head out.” 

He crossed the room to retrieve his camera, and Betty couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was when his hair fell into his eyes. She silently kicked herself for thinking him incompetent and a menace to society only 57 minutes earlier and wished she could take back any less than ladylike names she had called him in her mind before she had gottej to know him.

“Right,” Betty agreed, rubbing the back of her neck uncomfortably as she built up the courage to ask him the question she had been holding back since they had left Archie Andrews’ dressing room a few minutes ago. “Well, I was wondering if you could tear yourself away from that blog of yours for a few more hours, maybe we could go grab a drink at the-”

“Where is it?” 

“The bar?” Betty furrowed her brows together in confusion as he searched the area for something that wasn’t there. “Well, you didn’t let me finish, it’s at the-”

“No, my camera,” he told her, his tone slightly curt as the panic in his voice started to take over. “I set it over here, on top of the equipment box. But there’s no more equipment box and there’s no more camera. So where the hell is it?”

“Relax, they probably just packed it up with the rest of the stage equipment,” she comforted him, making her way to the spot that Jughead was scouring like a wild animal in search of his next meal. “We’ll just go tell them that they made a mistake before they-”

Before she could finish her sentence, the sound of tires screeching against asphalt as the van hauling all of the band’s equipment pulled away from the loading dock and onto the main road caused both of them to turn in its direction with panicked eyes.

“Leave,” she whispered, sprinting towards the van as it turned a corner away from the auditorium and made its way onto the highway. “No, no, no my planner was in that box! My whole life was in that thing, not to mention the tape recorder that I documented every single interview I had given over the past six weeks! I’m screwed!” 

“You’re screwed?” Jughead scoffed, his hands flying up to rest over his open mouth as he struggled to keep his anger in check. “Unlike your recreational fluff of a magazine that no one on campus actually reads, this blog is how I make a living. I get paid for the photos I post on there and I was promised a lot of cash for the pictures of Archie Andrews and his band. Without them, I can’t pay my rent this month!” 

“At least my so called fluff leads to an actual career when I graduate,” Betty shot back. “Where is your blog going to take you, the back alley of some convenience store selling counterfeit versions of famous photographs for cash?”

“I can’t believe I let you touch my camera,” Jughead grumbled, pulling out his phone from his jacket and pressing a few buttons before shoving it back in his pocket and stomping down the sidewalk to the end of the street. “This is all your fault.” 

“My fault?” Betty gawked at him as she struggled to keep up with his quick pace. “Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m going to get my camera back,” he informed her, rummaging through his pocket again to retrieve his car keys and continuing down the sidewalk until he reached the red 1976 BMW parked at the end of the curb. 

“You can’t just leave me here! What about my planner?”

“Sorry, princess, you’re on your own,” Jughead lamented, his expression anything but sympathetic as he unlocked the driver’s side door and hopped into the seat. “The band is heading to Chicago next and so am I. I don’t go anywhere without my camera. Wherever it goes, I go.” 

“Then I’m coming too,” she told him, reaching for the passenger side door handle at the exact moment he reached across the seat to slam his fist on the lock to keep her from entering. 

“Like hell you are.”

“Look, we don’t have to speak the whole way there, in fact I’m going to hold you to that,” she promised, her eyes pleading with him to unlock the door. “I just need a ride. That planner literally holds the fate of my future inside of it so please, take me with you.” 

He could have driven away from her right then. Pulled away from the curb to leave her without a single idea of where her planner was headed. But there was something about this strange girl that he couldn’t shake. As much as he loathed her at that moment, there was part of him that felt responsible for her somehow. And he couldn’t ignore that sort of feeling.

“Not a peep,” he warned, pulling up the passenger side lock and opening it for her so that she could slip inside. “And I choose the music. You touch that stereo, you lose an appendage you got it?”

“Fine by me,” she muttered, pulling out a wet wipe from her purse and beginning to paw at the blob on her slacks once again. “I can continue working on getting this stain out of my pants that some careless asshole who couldn’t be bothered to look where he was going is responsible for. That should occupy my time pretty thoroughly don’t you think?” 

“This is going to be a long road trip,” Jughead sighed, turning up the volume on the radio and pulling away from the curb to head onto the interstate as the long journey that neither of them knew was about to unfold before them, began.


	3. Chicago - Wrong Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their way to Chicago to catch up with Archie's band, Betty and Jughead hit some obstacles that they have to overcome together. Will they work as a team or end up bickering to the point of tearing the other apart?

Jughead flipped on the windshield wipers as the rain started to pound heavily on the roof of his tattered old BMW, speeding down the nearly-empty highway as Betty Cooper flipped through a fashion magazine in the passenger seat beside him. 

“I can’t believe you made me stop ten minutes into the trip so that you could go to the bathroom,” he complained, leaning towards the steering wheel as he struggled to see the slippery road coated in darkness and rain before him. 

“I didn’t get a chance to go after the concert, okay?” she defended herself, holding up the cellphone she was using as a flashlight and pointing it down towards the floorboard so that she could rummage through her purse for a piece of gum. “And I drank like a whole gallon of water today, I tend to excessively hydrate when I’m nervous.” 

“Well you better cross your legs for the rest of the ride because that was our one and only stop,” he warned her, adjusting the speed of the wipers so that they worked in time with the intensity of the early morning rainstorm. 

“What about food?” she pointed out cautiously, flipping off the light on her phone and tucking it into the cup holder in the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. “Hate to break it to you All Mighty Nomad, but I don’t think we’re going to survive a day’s ride with half a granola bar and what looks like - ew, yep - a bag full of stale french fries. Gross.” 

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “As long as I have my music and the road in front of me, I don’t need anything else.” 

“I’m just saying,” Betty muttered after a moment. “I saw the way you were devouring that Italian sausage before you so rudely crashed into me. I doubt you can go longer than a few hours without a meal so when you think about it I’m only looking out for-”

“Oh my god, do you ever stop talking?” Jughead cut her off, turning his head slightly to glare at her before focusing his gaze back on the road in front of him. 

“Not on an empty stomach,” Betty mumbled, squirming uncomfortably in the leather seat and crossing her arms in front of her chest defiantly. 

“Fine,” he spat, jerking the steering wheel hard and fast so that the car crossed two lanes of traffic, quickly taking the next exit leading to a small town with a variety of fast food options and pulling into the first one that he could find. “Look, food. You happy? Figure out what you want.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want to try the Panera back there because-” 

Jughead snapped his head in her direction to give her the meanest look she had ever seen, his eyes dancing wildly with anger and his cheeks so red that she was sure that they were radiating heat like she had never felt before. 

“Alright, okay,” Betty threw her hands up in surrender as she leaned towards him so that she could peruse the glowing menu sitting beside them in the drive thru. “Just get me whatever you’re getting. I’m terrible at making decisions on the spot like this.” 

“Works for me,” he huffed, rolling down his window and waiting for the crackle of the speaker and the sound of a woman’s voice asking for his order before leaning forward and talking loudly into speaker box. “Yes, can I have two chicken-”

“Actually,” Betty interjected, craning her neck and leaning as far into Jughead as she could so that her voice could be heard by the woman on the other end of the speaker. “Just get me a yogurt parfait and a small fruit cup. I’m not as starving as I thought I was.” 

“You are unbelievable,” he breathed, his voice seething with so much anger that Betty thought the vein on the side of his temple was going to pop out right in front of her. 

“What?” Betty feigned innocence, rolling her eyes as she sat back in her seat and watched him with an amused smirk forming on her lips. “Oh come on, don’t act like you weren’t hungry too. You’ll be thanking me a few hours from now, trust me.” 

“Sir?” the woman over the speaker asked, an impatience in her tone that caused Jughead to turn away from the golden-haired nuisance in his passenger seat and focus his attention back on the task at hand. “What else can I get you?”

He looked from Betty, to the speaker, and back at the time blinking on the dashboard in front of them. They had to be in Chicago by 7:00pm, otherwise they would miss their window of getting backstage to retrieve their missing items and at the rate they were going, they were lucky to be there by midnight.

“Anything that will take me far away from here.”

\--

They ate their food in silence, Betty focused on not spilling her yogurt all over the interior of Jughead’s car and Jughead focused on not throwing his breakfast sandwich at the side of Betty’s head in order to stop her from smacking her lips whenever she removed the spoon from her mouth. 

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Betty asked after a few moments, her brows furrowing together at the sight of rolling hills and grazing farm animals surrounding their view instead of honking cars and outstretched interstate like she had assumed they would have seen by now. 

“I know how to navigate the American highway system thank you very much,” Jughead snapped, reaching forward to press a button on the radio before leaning comfortably back in his seat. “I know where I’m going.” 

“I just think that you should let me use the GPS on my phone to-”

“What happened to you not talking?” he wondered. “I remember a promise was made along those lines that I’d love for us to get back to.” 

“Fine,” she muttered, turning her head away from him before crossing her arms in front of her chest and pursing her lips. “But we got off the main highway about half an hour ago and we haven’t seen a single gas station or mile marker for another fifteen and I just think that if we’re going to recreate the entirety of _Wrong Turn_ we should get to know each other a little better before we’re mutilated by a horde of backwoods cannibals together.” 

“She watches horror movies. Shall wonders never cease,” Jughead mumbled under his breath before sighing in defeat and glancing curiously in her direction. “Fine, Elizabeth Cooper, I have a question for you.”

“Ask me anything,” she told him. ”I’m an open book,” 

“Why did you get in the car with a complete stranger with nothing other than that hideous purse of yours and those splotchy yellow pants?” 

“I told you,” she sighed impatiently, averting her gaze to the view of the overcast sky outside of the window and fiddling with ripped patch of fabric on the seat underneath her. “That planner has everything I’ve worked for inside it. If I lose it, my life is over.” 

“I don’t believe that,” Jughead admitted, his expression softening the slightest bit as his eyes drifted from the road to meet her gaze for just a moment. “You convinced me to let you into my car when I can barely tolerate breathing the same air as you so I’m sure you should have no trouble getting the editor of that newspaper to give you another chance.”

“Trust me, I ran out of chances with him a long time ago,” she mumbled, a sadness emerging in her voice that caused the annoyance Jughead had felt for her not ten minutes ago, to slowly fade from his thoughts and dissipate all together. 

“But you could have looked up where the band’s next show was going to be on that handy gadget of yours that seems to be plastered to your palm like you’ll spontaneously combust if you set it down,” he reminded her. “You could have easily gotten there on your own. Why choose to ride with me?”

“I don’t know,” Betty breathed, her brows drawing together as a distant look of confusion settled into her expression. “I spend most of my life making certain that I plan everything to the perfectly precise detail. My whole life is plans and order and structure. In that moment I decided to climb into your car I was finally doing something spontaneous for the first time. And I have to admit, it felt good.” 

“Believe it or not,” Jughead said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I can really respect that.” 

“Not,” she answered, her lips quirking up into an amused grin as she met his gaze with a leveled glare. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, wincing slightly at his inability to give someone the benefit of the doubt. “I guess I haven’t really given you a chance have I?” 

“First time for everything right?” she pointed out encouragingly, sitting back into her seat and letting her eyes drift closed as the pretty melodies pouring from the stereo filled her ears. “This song is nice. What is it?” 

“Above the Clouds of Pompeii by Bear’s Den,” Jughead answered, a distant smile creeping onto his lips as the memories of this particular song came flooding back into his thoughts. “They’re this little folk rock band from London, England who have a passion for music like I’ve never seen before. I saw them in Austin last month and was completely blown away.”

“It reminds me of my sister Polly,” Betty mumbled distantly, the lyrics documenting the feeling of missing someone who isn’t a part of a family’s life anymore, filling her heart and causing tears to spring up at the corners of her eyes.

“Oh,” Jughead breathed, realization taking over his expression as the supposed meaning of Betty’s words sunk in. “I’m sorry, did she-”

“It’s not like that,” she assured him quickly. “She’s okay, she just ran away when she was still in high school. We haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

“That must have been hard for you,” he told her, his eyes softening as the feelings that he had endured when his mother left when he was a boy flooded back to the surface and allowed him to understand exactly what she was going through. “I’m sorry.” 

“It was, but it was harder on my mother. She was the reason Polly left and I don’t think she ever really forgave herself. I tried to be there for her but-” Betty stopped suddenly as a clang and a thud coming from the front of the car caused her head to snap up and her whole body to become alert. “What’s that sound?” 

“What?” Jughead knitted his brows together in confusion, but quickly understood as a puff of smoke appeared from underneath the hood and filled the view in front of them. “Dammit. This happens sometimes.” 

“Great,” Betty mumbled under her breath, throwing her head back onto the headrest as Jughead pulled over onto the gravel-heavy shoulder on the side of the road. “Our car just broke down on the side of an abandoned-looking highway in the middle of nowheresville U.S.A. This is exactly how slasher movies start.” 

“Relax,” Jughead told her, putting the car in park and stepping out onto the gravel to flip open the scratched-up hood of the BMW. “It’s just overheated. If I got paid a penny for every time this has happened to me over the five years that I’ve owned this car, I’d be a rich man. I saw a sign for a convenience store a few miles back. I’ll walk down there and buy a water bottle so that I can add it to the antifreeze tank and-”

“You have a leak in your cooling system,” Betty concluded, squinting at the various pieces of metal staring up at her and taking a step backwards to meet Jughead’s bewildered gaze. “That’s why you’re overheating all the time. You need to get it repaired before it gets worse.” 

“How did you-”

“I used to fix cars with my Dad back in high school,” Betty explained with a casual shrug. “He owns an auto body shop in Riverdale and I worked there a few days a week after school.” 

“You were a mechanic?” The surprise in Jughead’s voice caused Betty to turn on her heel and narrow her eyes at him with a look of exasperation written in her features. 

“Is that so impossible for you to comprehend?” 

“Kind of,” Jughead admitted, taking note of her name-brand footwear and perfectly pressed sweater with a raised eyebrow and a look of skepticism. “Yeah.” 

Betty rolled her eyes, shutting the hood with one hand before wiping her hands on the back of her already-ruined white slacks and leaning against the front bumper. “We can do the water bottle thing for now, but at some point you need to get this looked at,” she told him. “I’ve seen cars that had a leak, but the owner never brought them in to get fixed. It usually didn’t end well.” 

“I don’t know if I can afford to-”

Before Jughead could finish his sentence, a rickety old pickup truck pulled up beside the broken-down car and the driver rolled down the passenger side window so that he could lean forward to talk to them. 

“You folks need some assistance?” the stranger asked, the younger man in the passenger seat leaning back into the headrest so that his older companion could call out to the couple through the open window. 

“Shit,” Jughead muttered, turning away from the truck to lean in closer to Betty. 

“Shit,” Betty echoed, whispering frantically into his ear as her palms started to sweat and her heart began pounding frantically in her chest. “I told you - next thing you know we’re being strung up in the trees and eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next two weeks.” 

“Shut up, just follow my lead,” Jughead told her, turning back to the men in the truck and taking a few steps closer so that he wouldn’t have to yell across the shoulder for them to hear him. 

“Hi there,” Jughead greeted them, giving him the friendliest smile he was capable of mustering and resting one hand on the faded green paint of the side of the truck. “We were just on our way to Chicago and our car overheated. Nothing too serious, so I think we’ve got it handled from here.”

“Why the hell would you tell them where we were going?” Betty hissed under her breath, shuffling her way over to them so that she was standing close enough behind Jughead to be able to smack him hard on the back of the arm in the event that he ended up disclosing too much information to these strangers. 

“Chicago, huh?” the older man mumbled, scratching his bearded chin curiously as he glanced back at the road stretched out behind them. “Hate to break it to you son, but the road heading towards Chicago is about fifteen miles in the other direction.”

“I told you we were going the wrong way!” Betty exclaimed, whacking him on the back of the arm just as she had planned and turning to raise an angry eyebrow up at him. 

“Happens to the best of us,” the man chuckled. “Why don’t you let my boy and I take a look at that car for ya. Kevin here is the best mechanic from here to Hillsboro. He’ll get you fixed up in no time, half price. My wife will cook you up a nice home cooked meal while you wait. What do you say?”

Betty clutched Jughead’s elbow as a warning and stepped forward to politely decline the man’s offer. “No, I really don’t think we can-”

“We’d love to,” Jughead cut her off, causing Betty’s jaw to drop open in complete awe as he stepped in front of her to lean through the window to shake the man’s hand. 

“Are you insane?” Betty shrieked, pulling him back by the t-shirt and leaning in close to whisper into his ear once more. “Did you not hear everything I just said about backwoods hillbillies who like to chow down on lost strangers for kicks?”

Ignoring the crazed girl standing beside him, Jughead wriggled free of Betty’s grip and stepped to the side as the younger man hopped out of the vehicle. 

“Excellent,” the man beamed at the two of them from the driver’s seat, gesturing to the dark-haired boy who was now standing in front of them with a friendly smirk. “Kevin will hook your car up to the back here and we’ll get you fixed up.”

Betty was two seconds away from passing out right there on the side of the rode in the middle of nowhere when Jughead tugged on her sleeve and pointed to the shiny gold badge sitting in the cupholder at the front of the truck. 

“Thank you so much, Sheriff...” 

“Sheriff Keller,” the man finished for him, holding out his hand for Jughead to shake and giving them both a warm smile. “Nice to meet you both.” 

“You too,” Jughead turned back to Betty with a smug grin before pulling himself into the truck and settling into the seat. “I’m Jughead and this is Betty. Don’t worry, she’s not as helpless as she looks. She’s actually the one who discovered the leak in the cooling system. The girl knows her cars apparently.”

“Is that so,” Sheriff Keller nodded, looking down at Betty who had yet to join Jughead in the truck, and watching with a look of amusement as she chomped down nervously on her nails, eyeing Kevin curiously as he started removing tools from the bed of the truck that he would need to hook the car to the dolly attached to the back bumper. 

“I saw that movie about the cannibals by the way,” Kevin told her, his tone playful as he waited for his father to position the truck in front of Jughead’s BMW. “Wasn’t gruesome enough in my opinion. If you’re going to do a backwoods cannibal movie, you really want to make it look more believable. Not enough blood or mutilation to pass it off as real.” 

Betty’s eyes went wide as she hurried away from Kevin to make her way over to the truck and climbed in next to Jughead, shutting the door quickly and sinking into the side of the door. 

Sheriff Keller glanced down at Jughead’s arm resting comfortably against Betty’s and smiled amusedly in their direction. “So how long have you two kids been together-” 

“Oh we’re not together,” Jughead cut him off quickly, moving his arm into his own lap so that it wouldn’t come close to touching any part of Betty again. 

“Please, he could only be so lucky,” Betty muttered, tightening her blonde ponytail and turning in her seat to stare out the window. 

“Oh really?” 

Betty whirled around to narrow her eyes at him, the heat rising in her cheeks as the anger started to bubble up inside of her the way it had one two many times since she had met Jughead the day before. “Hell yes, do you know how many guys fawn all over me and fight for my attention back at school-?”

“You’re so full of yourself I can’t believe you even-”

“Oh boy,” Sheriff Keller mumbled to himself, shaking his head knowingly as he let the two of them tear into each other with their words the way that married couples did after having known each other for fifteen to twenty years. “This is going to get interesting.” 

Kevin hopped into the bed of the truck and knocked on the back window to give his father the all clear to head down the road. The road trip had only just begun, but Betty and Jughead were already experiencing more trouble than they had anticipated when they had made the decision to travel across the country to retrieve the two items that meant the most to them. They were miles from where they needed to be. They couldn’t go ten minutes without bickering. And they were headed to a strangers’ house without any way of knowing that they could trust them other than a badge and a kind smile. Things were looking bleak for the blonde-haired journalist and the snarky photographer, but what they didn’t know was that things were about to get significantly worse in ways that they could never have prepared for.


End file.
